Don't look back...

... in anger I heard you say.  

Now that you've got that earworm, let's pretend you are reading this post in early January when I meant to write it rather than the end of January when I actually did.

I was going to write a nice post about top 5 hits and misses and so on, but then I realised - I don't want to look back at 2014 in great detail. It was a crappy year for me personally. My dad was diagnosed with cancer at the end of 2013 and  died in late November. Hence the big blog gap and the lack of interest in reviewing the year.

So I'm looking forward at 2015 instead!

There were some good things about 2014 I am going to bring forward:

Wardrobe architect was great! It really helped me to define and refine my style and colour palette. But I struggled when it came to the final task of creating a capsule wardrobe. I think this is because I don't like the idea of a few mix and match pieces. I'm not someone who buys a couple of great quality investment pieces each season. So I'm enjoying the understanding of colours, prints and silhouettes that I gained without making a specific sewing plan out of it.

I loved Marie from A Stitching Odyssey's vintage sewing pledge (pics of my finished garments are at the top of the page). I managed 4 out of the 5 I pledged and the items I made are in pretty heavy rotation in my wardrobe. It's made me very keen to work with more vintage patterns and I have signed up again for this year to make 5 items. And a few new vintage patterns may have fallen into my Etsy cart!

This year WILL be the year I conquer trousers. The fear I have of fitting them is stupid and if I can make bound buttonholes and welt pockets, I can make trousers! I am starting with the Sew Over It Ultimate Trousers so I can get a steer on fitting without worrying about a fly front, and moving onto Colette Junipers. I also want to give jeans a go, so I have the Iconic Patterns Jess jeans and the Jalie pattern to try.

This year I am going to revisit some of my favourite patterns I have made in the past. I've done all the fitting and muslining work already so I can concentrate on the fun bit of sewing and wearing! In particular the Emery, Mortmain and Anna dresses really lend themselves to pairing with different skirts to make a new look with minimal fitting effort. The bodice from my Christmas dress was pretty awesome too.

I am planning to sew up fabrics from.my stash. This isn't a stash diet, but I have some really lovely fabrics that I want to use before I buy much else. The exception to this will be knits as I really don't have any stashed.

So no specific plans that I won't stick to beyond the next couple of garments.

Hope your new year has started well. Are you planning for 2015 or going with the flow?

My Christmas dress

This is my last vintage pledge make of 2014 and number 4 of the original 5 I pledged.

Fittingly, the pattern came from Marie at Stitch Odyssey as she added it to the vintage pattern pyramid before it came to me. I fell in love with the gorgeous asymmetric neckline as soon as I saw it and snapped it up as my pick from the parcel.

Why can't I flip this to landscape?  Grrr Blogger!

I bought this John Kaldor fabric from the sale at Sew Essential a while ago and had it earmarked for this dress as soon as I nabbed the pattern. It was marked as a french crepe. It washes fine and pressed reasonably well with a medium iron.  It's lovely to wear and barely creases.

The pattern was for a 40" bust and I thought I was going to have a bit of work to make it fit, but it was actually pretty good from the start. I lengthened the bodice and skirt by 2" each and lowered the bust darts by 1.5". Other than lowering the darts, the main adjustment was a square shoulder adjustment. I took it in at the sides once it was constructed which meant a bit of tinkering with skirt pleats to get them even. I'm never keen on that just above the elbow length of sleeve so I shortened by about 1.5" to make it easier to wear with a cardigan.

As usual I didn't quite think how the drape of the fabric would affect the neckline and the piece at the side. It meant this piece was a bit floppy and didn't quite sit properly. I fused an additional piece of interfacing to the facing and the bodice front which fixed the problem.

Closer shot of the neckline (with bonus derp-face)

I didn't add the bow at the neck in the end. I may make it and attach it with a pin - in my experience these details don't do well in the washing machine so making it removable seems sensible.

I used Hug Snug to make a waist stay and also machine sewed it around the skirt and sleeve hems before catch stitching by hand.  This was really time consuming on such a full skirt but it gives a lovely finish.

Minerva Blogger Network - Vintage shirt dress

Hot on the heels of finally posting my reveal of my party dress, it's time for my July make.

Cat photobomb!

I've had this vintage pattern in my stash for about 6 months and just fell in love with the notched yoke and cute collar so it wasn't going to languish unused for long!

I ordered some linen look cotton that Kathryn used for this dress, and it's really lovely.  It's lightweight but with a lovely textured linen finish (and it doesn't crease as much as linen does either!).  I wore this on a pretty hot day and it was lovely and cool.  For the £4.99 a metre price tag it's great and comes in a huge range of colours.  I went for red, and it's just the colour of red I like - not too orangey.

As I was running out of time on this make, I tissue fitted the tracing and found that my usual adjustments were fine, so I did a small FBA and lengthened the bodice by 2".

Although there are a huge number of pattern pieces for the bodice - the front and back both have bodices, yokes, bodice facings and neck facings, this came together really quickly and easily.  The construction method to get the lovely notches involved attaching a bodice facing piece to the bodice piece which is turned and pressed and then topstitched to the yoke piece.  I couldn't quite understand it reading the instructions until I actually tried and it was pretty easy and gave a great finish.

I decided not to use the pleated skirt pieces that came with the pattern as the bottom hem would have measured 83" which seemed crazy!  The skirt pattern had 3 pieces - 2 side pieces and a back piece.  I went for a simpler gathered rectangle using the Emery pattern pieces as a guide to size and length, and positioned the seams at centre front and centre back to allow for the front opening.  I used the same method of finishing the skirt edges as the patterns uses - the top edges under the notches (which I transferred from the vintage pattern pieces) are finished using bias tape and turned under, and then the gap is left open.  I stitched on a couple of hooks and eyes in the hope of holding this closed but as this hasn't been all that successful, I think I will add another couple of buttons on to avoid knicker flashing (and contrast bias tape flashing - this cherry print bias is adorable but I probably would go for matching stuff with hindsight!).

The pattern calls for covered buttons, which I ordered as part of my kit from Minerva.  However I had a total fail with these!  The teeth didn't seem to want to grab the little circle of fabric and when I finally got it all tucked in, the back wouldn't stay on - anyone got any tips on how to use these?  I went with some buttons from the stash instead.  The front of these buttons felt a bit fancy for the style, so I flipped them over and used the other side.

The only other change I made was to move the button placement a bit as it was more flattering to have them starting lower down.

I'm really happy with this dress - it's lovely and cool and easy to wear, and it feels like a vintage dress on.  Perfect for the warm weather we've been having (long may it continue!).  And this is item number 2 for my Vintage Pledge!

Minerva are working on their website currently so rather than one link to my kit, here are the links to the individual components of it if you want to make a similar dress for yourself!

http://www.minervacrafts.com/c5183-58-wide-linen-look-cotton-dress-fabric-full-range-of-colours.html

http://www.minervacrafts.com/2vh200wht-vilene-iron-on-interlining-softline-light-90cm-wide-white-per-metre.html

http://www.minervacrafts.com/2t100-365-gutermann-(sewing-thread)-sew-all-thread-100m-365.html

http://www.minervacrafts.com/h473.11-hemline-metal-selfcover-buttons-11mm-(6pk).html

http://www.minervacrafts.com/bbf25cherry-25mm-wide-cherry-patterned-cotton-bias-binding-full-range-of-colours.html

Mad men challenge - the Pensive Betty dress

After much debating over fabrics and discussion on Twitter, here's my entry to Julia Bobbin's Mad Men Challenge.

Pensive? Grumpy? Miserable? You decide.

I posted about my inspiration dress here. I used vintage Simplicity 4766 from 1954. I had originally planned to use the Anna bodice cut off at the bust pleats with a midriff panel added, but when I saw this pattern it looked perfect (and doubles up as a Vintage Pledge item!).

I loved working with this pattern. As it is a single size, there's so much information on the pattern sheets. I traced the bodice pieces to alter with my usual 1/2" FBA (and I did use a ruler this time!). I lengthened the bodice by 3" but I think that was slightly too much. 2.5" would probably have been fine. I made a muslin and other than needing a slight square shoulder adjustment it was perfect. I needed that after my Emery fitting fail!  Oh i also added 2" at the waist. Damn you slender 1950s ladies!

 

The fabric is a quilting cotton (I know, gasp in horror, but it's good quality and softened up really nicely after prewashing). It's Moda from the Vintage Modern collection. Although it's not a rose print, I think the red and pink flowers capture the feel of the original dress pretty well. It's surprisingly hard to find rose print fabric that's not just red.

It came together really easily. There was no mention of interfacing the facings but after consultation with Twitter I did (I guess convenient fusibles weren't around at the time). 

The pattern suggests using seam binding to stabilise the waist seam. After talking to the ladies on Twitter (again!) I decided to add a waist stay. It's just seam binding stitched to the waistline seam allowance and topstitched, fastened with a heavy duty corset hook and eye. I may add this into other dresses as it's really comfortable.

I used a side lapped zip as per the pattern and sewn by machine.

I made the skirt as per the pattern length but when it came to hemming I chopped a huge 5.5" off. Since I am tall I didn't think it would need shortening by that much! Worth checking if you are shorter and have limited fabric available as you could save a lot! I hemmed it to just below the knee as it was the most flattering on me.  The hem was hand catch-stitched - well you need something sto occupy your hands while you want Sewing Bee!

I love this dress and wore it to my sister in law's birthday party this weekend - I got lots of compliments!

Did you make a Mad Men dress?  Show me!

The next stop on the Vintage Pattern Pyramid is...

by the power of the random number,

one of the lovely Spoolettes Nicole Needles!

Congrualtions Nicole!  Can't wait to see what pattern you pick.

Drop me a line and I'll arrange to get the patterns to you.

Sorry to everyone who entered but didn't win this time.  Follow Nicole's blog to get another chance to win when she holds her giveaway.

Mad Men Challenge number 3 - my plans

After much debate, here is the beauty I am planning to recreate for this year's Mad Men Challenge organised by Julia Bobbin.

I was planning to us the Anna bodice with a midriff panel and a gathered or pleated skirt, until I saw this beauty that Anne from Mercury Handmade was selling:

It's Simplicity 4766, a beauty from 1954.  Just look at that gorgeous neckline and those gigantic pockets?  The red one is a dead ringer for Betty's dress - she even looks a bit like Betty!  She certainly has the same feeling of ennui (and the possibility of a cigarette in hand).  No dickey or jumper underneath for her.

I'll be leaving off the pockets (but will definitely make one with pockets in the future - I think they use about a metre of fabric on their own!).

I have been scouting for fabric for ages before finally settling on this:

It's by Moda from the Vintage Modern Range by Bonnie & Camille.

Although it's not an exact match for the rose print, it was surprisingly hard to find something closer and I liked that this had the lighter pink flowers as well as the red.  I think it will give more of the impression of the original than some of the modern digital rose prints I found.

And it's number 1 of the 5 I have pledged to make for the Vintage Pattern Pledge!  Result!

Are you entering this time?  What are you making?

The Original Pattern Pyramid comes to town!

I was lucky enough to be the next stop on the Pattern Pyramid!  This is the original one started by Karen from Did You Make That when she was generously gifted a trove of vintage patterns from one of her blog readers.

You can read the original post here.

I got these patterns when Marie from A Stitching Odyssey hosted it recently and it's a great stash!

There are vintage dresses galore:

Vintage separates:

A host of 1970s goodness:

Some 1980s and modern patterns:

We get to choose a pattern to keep.  I chose this gorgeous 1950s pattern which Marie added.  I fell in love with the neckline, and although I might have to do a bit of grading down, it'll be worth it!

Damn you Blogger for the sideways pic!

In return we have to add a pattern.  As there was a bit of a shortage of mid-sized patterns in there, I added these 3 from my stash:

If you would like to be the next stop for the Pattern Pyramid and have the chance to choose one of these for yourself, here are the rules:

• Any blogger with an active blog can enter.  You can live anywhere - these patterns are pretty well-travelled!
• You can keep one pattern for yourself, and then you have to host your own giveaway!  You must be happy to post internationally if you win.
• Most bloggers have added more patterns to the mix to keep it fresh (but it's not essential)

Want to be part of it?

Comment below by 12th March (midnight GMT), I'll draw a winner by random number and the patterns could be winging their way to you!

The Vintage Pattern Pledge

Do you have a lot of vintage patterns that you haven't sewn up?  But they are so tempting and so pretty right?  But then they get bumped for a new indie pattern all the coolkids are sewing up.

This is exactly what I am like and Marie from A Stitching Odyssey feels the same!

She has started the Vintage Pattern Pledge here and I am joining in!

During 2014, I, Joanne, will sew up at least five garments from vintage patterns.

I haven't gone for 5 patterns as I am not sure if that will work for me - if i find ones that work well, I may make more than one version!  But I'll probably choose at least 5 patterns to give myself a choice.

I'll be posting over the next few days with the patterns I am planning to use.  And if you are up for this challenge, stay tuned for the Pattern Pyramid and you can grab yourself a choice of more vintage patterns!

Are you in?   

The kite - flying Hawthorn

A new Colette pattern is always a big event - those ladies are so good at marketing! From the sneaky peaks they gave us, the #sewcialists on Twitter suspected a shirt dress and I was thrilled as I've wanted to tackle one for a while. Great Colette instructions and a fab shirt dress pattern is a match made in heaven for a nervous sewist!

When I saw Hawthorn I certainly wasn't disappointed. I love the neckline and collar shape and the full skirt is so pretty. Of course Sarai and the team's lovely styling and gorgeous models always help sell a pattern to me! (Have you voted for Colette in the Martha Stewart awards by the way? Link here).

I nabbed the pattern as soon as Backstitch had it in stock and luckily the perfect fabric fell into my lap on a quick dive into Remnant Kings in Glasgow on my way home from my mum's. I spotted this lovely pale blue cotton with a textured weave and was amazed on checking the price to see that it was £5 a metre! Sold to the crazed sewist who already has far too much stuff to lug on the train back down south!

I then stupidly sat on it for a while and concentrated on other projects, I think for fear it would be too difficult. And then I realised August was marching on and I wasn't likely to have much call to wear a pale blue dress in winter so I'd better get on with it!  But I needn't have worried - Colette held my hand throughout! 

As usual I made a muslin. I cut a size 8 bodice grading to a 10 at the waist and a 10 skirt to fit the waist. I cut the skirt to the longest length.  Based on tissue fit I lengthened by 3". As the pattern said it had quite a loose fit I thought I might get away without an FBA but no such luck. The pattern only has waist darts but I decided to keep the small bust dart created rather than rotate it back and mess with side seam length! I think a broad shoulder adjustment might work well for me on the next version (oh yes, version 2 planned already!)

Spot the small-person-flashing-her-knickers photobomb?

 The only construction issue I found (in common with a few others in the Flickr group is that the collar as drafted didn't reach the circles on the neckline. Apparently if you use 1/4" seams it works fine but I had cut, sewn (with the usual 5/8" seams) and pressed collar by the time I realised! Still looking at the model and a few other finished dresses I don't think it makes much difference.

As usual I was paralysed by button choice - why is this so hard? I think it's the fear of spoiling something you've put so much work into by choosing the wrong ones. I wanted coloured ones as I feel there could be something of a nurse's uniform about the dress, but nothing was speaking to me. I tried to find vintage ones but as I needed 14 (an extra one due to extra bodice length added) I couldn't find any that seemed right. Wooden buttons might have been cute but they tend to be bigger than I would choose for a shirt dress.  I finally chose these clear flower shaped ones which I think work well.

So after the ordeal of 14 buttonholes, 3 broken needles and running out of thread half way down so that the skirt buttonholes are ever so slightly darker than the bodice ones, I read to the end of the instructions and discovered I needed to hand stitch the hem! I used a catch stitch rather than slip stitch as it's so pretty but that is one long hem! I think it took 3 evenings to do. I recently bought some beeswax which I used for the first time to coat the thread and i am sold! Amazing stuff - try it if you often get into a tangle when hand sewing! As a result I think this is some of the neatest catch stitching I have ever done!

Also as you can barely see the collar for my hair, here's a pic of it on Marjorie:

I wore the dress to a kite festival on the August Bank holiday weekend. There wasn't nearly enough wind for the kite displays although we did get a bit of flying done as well as some paddling! I got a few compliments on my Hawthorn from people in the vintage and craft tent (isn't it great to be able to say "thanks I made it"?) And had a great chat with a guy who is launching a vintage clothes range after learning to sew to make costumes for his alter-ego drag act! I love the way sewing gets you involved in such random conversations!

I picked up some fab goodies for a giveaway too which I'll be doing in a couple of weeks to celebrate passing 100 Blog Lovin followers so look out for that!

Twenties Love

Much as I love vintage fashion, I've never been a huge fan of the 1920s.  Perhaps as all those drop waists and skinny hip/ flat chested looks would not suit my shape in the slightest.

But that was until I saw the new John Lewis TV ad:

I just love so many of the clothes she wears.  I'm a real hat person and those gorgeous cloches are amazing!  Especially the red one.  Her hair is so cute (maybe that I could manage!).

The striped dress at the beginning is lovely and she wears several lovely coats.  Love the collar detail on this red one:

But the piece de resistance is this beautiful white dress.  Wouldn't it be amazing as a wedding dress?  And that headband?

Must be my lucky day!

Although I love a good trawl around charity shops looking for fabric,
sheets and other bits of vintage loveliness to stop the sewing obsession
from completely bankrupting me, I have never had any luck with finding
patterns.

Until today! Right at the bottom of an otherwise unexciting box of fabric
(mainly washed out duvet covers and horrible 80s curtains) I came across a
perfect condition Style 2212 cape pattern. Pattern not cut and IN MY SIZE!
And for the princely sum of 50p!

(Check the scary hair on the model in the green - I reckon they all went to
the hairdresser together and she got fried under the dryer).

I love capes and toy with buying one every winter so this year I'm going to
have to make my own!